Syracusans today traveling to cast votes that will help decide future of southern Sudan

Dick Blume/The Post Standard Dominic Mathiang, a Syracuse resident who came here from Sudan, displays the flag of Southern Sudan, in front of the flag of his new country. He will vote Sunday on whether the south should become independent of the rest of Sudan. He is at Syracuse City Hall with the flag donated by the local Sudanese community.

Akuot Leekleft for Boston at 2 a.m. today to cast a vote in an election she believes will lead to eventual freedom and peace in the country she fled as a teenager.

The 24-year-old is among an estimated 110 local Sudanese refugees who have registered to vote in a historic referendum to decide if Southern Sudan should split from the rest of the country. Southern Sudanese people in Sudan and in eight other countries can vote.

Those who spoke with The Post-Standard say they believe independence for Southern Sudan is necessary and inevitable. Most of Central New York Sudanese have become U.S. citizens, but have relatives and roots in Sudan and consider the referendum momentous.

“I have my entire family there, and, you know, I endured all this mistreatment when I was young, and really don’t think I want to hear other kids going through the same thing that I did,” said Leek, who is a student at Cazenovia College.

Pothwei Bangoshoth, 43, of Syracuse, would love to see the new country adopt some of the rules of the U.S. Constitution.

Sudan, in North Africa, is the continent’s biggest country. It is infamous for its civil war during which hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in Darfur. As many as 300,000 were killed since fighting broke out in 2003 between the government, a related militia and rival militias, according to the United Nations.

The U.N., which is monitoring and supporting the referendum, says Sudan has suffered from civil conflict most of the time since its became independent in 1956. The current civil war between the north and the south began in 1983 and has killed more than 2 million, uprooted four million and forced roughly 600,000 to leave the country as refugees, according to the U.N.

The country’s most famous refugees are the Lost Boys, children from Southern Sudan who were separated from their families by the civil war and somehow survived and made it to refugee camps.

Dominic Dut Mathiang, 30, who lives in Syracuse, is a Lost Boy who became a U.S. citizen. He said he plans to vote for independence to end the North’s oppression of the Southern Sudanese people.

He doesn’t want any child to go through what he did.

“The referendum we are talking about right now is the only help we have,” Mathiang said.

Back in the 1990s, the war was hidden, Mathiang said. Now is the time because the world is watching, which increases the chance the election will be fair, Bangoshoth said. He thinks this is the only shot the south has at a fair election, so all the votes are critical.

The referendum stems from a north-south “Comprehensive Peace Agreement” signed in 2005 but never fully implemented. Nor were its terms every fully defined, Mathiang said.

Eight of the nine prospective voters interviewed by The Post-Standard don’t expect the North to support the South’s decision to become an independent country.

“They support it or not, it will go ahead anyway. And let them do what they are going to do,” said Antoni Makuor, 43, who lives in Syracuse.

The local refugees expect independence will or likely will lead to war.